Editorial: Teen's mistrial mirrors views of community

In a telling ending, a judge declared a mistrial Thursday afternoon in the murder trial of Ventura County teenager Brandon McInerney.

As horrific and notorious as the crime was — McInerney, then 14 years old, shot his classmate Larry King, 15, twice in the head in an Oxnard school classroom in 2008 — the case was a double tragedy that provoked a wide range of responses among those who had followed it closely since Day One.

The judge declared the mistrial after the jury, composed of nine women and three men, announced that it was unable to agree on a verdict after taking several votes and deliberating since Friday.

Five of the jurors voted for a murder conviction, while the other seven jurors voted to convict Brandon of the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter.

That division among the jurors reflects the deep divide that also exists in the community at large regarding the appropriate way to punish a boy who committed an act of horrific violence that demands severe punishment, yet who had turned 14 just two weeks before the shooting, whose home life failed to provide the support and guidance that a child needs, and who was in a turbulent situation at school where there was equally little support evident.

The District Attorney's Office could refile murder charges against Brandon, but The Star believes the wisest course of action now is to take a sufficient amount of time for a good, hard look at the case that the prosecution presented and carefully consider what the jury's reactions revealed.

For starters, this trial showed it will be hard if not impossible to convince a jury that a sentence of 50 years to life in prison — which is mandatory for a first-degree murder conviction — represents justice in this criminal case, in which the defendant was prosecuted as an adult rather than in Juvenile Court.

And after this eight-week trial, held in Los Angeles County because of so much pretrial publicity in Ventura County, it doesn't seem worth it to rip off the scab one more time by retrying the case the same way in the hope that it would have a dramatically different result the second time.

Punishment must be administered for this tragic, fatal attack on a child on a school campus. But a plea agreement without the possibility of life in prison should be the obvious alternative for prosecutors.